A Feast of Demons doc

A Feast of Demons Morrison, William Douglas Published: 1958 Categorie(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, Short Stories Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/32010 1 Also available on Feedbooks for Morrison: • Divinity (1953) • The Hunters (1953) • The Model of a Judge (1953) Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50. Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks http://www.feedbooks.com Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes. 2 Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction March 1958. Ex- tensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. 3 I T hat year we were all Romans, and I have to tell you that I look aw- ful in a toga and short sword, but not nearly as awful as the Greek. You go to one of the big schools and naturally you turn out for the Class Reunion. Why not? There's money there, and good fellowship, and money, and the chance of a business contact that will do you some good. And money. Well, I wasn't that fortunate—and you can say that again because it's the story of my life: I wasn't that fortunate. I didn't go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I didn't even go to Columbia, U.C.L.A. or the University of Chicago. What I went to was Old Ugly. Don't lie to me—you never heard of Old Ugly, not even if I tell you it's Oglethorpe A. & M. There were fifty-eight of us in my graduating class—that's 1940—and exactly thirty turned up for the tenth reunion. Wouldn't that turn your stomach? Only thirty Old Grads with enough loyalty and school feeling to show up for that tenth reunion and parade around in Roman togas and drink themselves silly and renew old school ties. And, out of that thirty, the ones that we all really wanted to see for sentimental reasons—I refer to Feinbarger of Feinbarger Shipping, Schroop of the S.S.K. Studios in Hollywood, Dixon of the National City Bank and so on—they didn't show up at all. It was terribly disappointing to all of us, especially to me. In fact, at the feast that evening, I found myself sitting next to El Greco. There simply wasn't anyone else there. You understand that I don't refer to that Spanish painter—I believe he's dead, as a matter of fact. I mean Theobald Greco, the one we called the Greek. I introduced myself and he looked at me blearily through thick glasses. "Hampstead? Hampstead?" "Virgil Hampstead," I reminded him. "You remember me. Old Virgie." He said, "Sure. Any more of that stuff left in the bottle, Old Virgie?" I poured for him. It was my impression, later borne out by evidence, that he was not accustomed to drinking. I said, "It's sure great to see all the fellows again, isn't it? Say, look at Pudge Detweiler there! Ever see anything so comical as the lampshade he's wearing for a hat?" "Just pass me the bottle, will you?" Greco requested. "Old Virgie, I mean." 4 "Still in research and that sort of thing?" I asked. "You always were a brain, Greek. I can't tell you how much I've envied you creative fellows. I'm in sales myself. Got a little territory right here that's a mint, Greek. A mint. If I only knew where I could lay my hands on a little capital to ex- pand it the way—But I won't bore you with shop talk. What's your line these days?" "I'm in transmutation," he said clearly, and passed out face down on the table. Now nobody ever called me a dope—other things, yes, but not a dope. I knew what transmutation meant. Lead into gold, tin into platinum, all that line of goodies. And accordingly the next morning, after a certain amount of Bromo and black coffee, I asked around the campus and found out that Greco had a place of his own not far from the campus. That explained why he'd turned up for the reunion. I'd been wondering. I borrowed cab fare from Old Pudge Detweiler and headed for the ad- dress I'd been given. It wasn't a home. It was a beat-up factory and it had a sign over the door: T. GRECO Plant Foods & Organic Supplies S ince it was Sunday, nobody seemed to be there, but I pushed open the door. It wasn't locked. I heard something from the basement, so I walked down a flight of steps and looked out into a rather smelly laboratory. There was the Greek. Tall, thin, wide-eyed and staggering, he ap- peared to be chasing butterflies. I cleared my throat, but he didn't hear me. He was racing around the laboratory, gasping and muttering to himself, sweeping at empty air with what looked to me like an electric toaster on a stick. I looked again and, no, it wasn't an electric toaster, but exactly what it was defied me. It appeared to have a recording scale on the side of it, with a needle that flickered wildly. I couldn't see what he was chasing. The fact was that, as far as I could see, he wasn't chasing anything at all. You have to get the picture: Here was Greco, racing around with one eye on the scale and one eye on thin air; he kept bumping into things, and every now and then he'd stop, and stare around at the gadgets on 5 the lab benches, and maybe he'd throw a switch or turn a dial, and then he'd be off again. He kept it up for ten minutes and, to tell you the truth, I began to wish that I'd made some better use of Pudge Detweiler's cab fare. The Greek looked as though he'd flipped, nothing less. But there I was. So I waited. And by and by he seemed to get whatever it was he was looking for and he stopped, breathing heavily. I said, "Hi there, Greek." He looked up sharply. "Oh," he said, "Old Virgie." He slumped back against a table, trying to catch his breath. "The little devils," he panted. "They must have thought they'd got away that time. But I fixed them!" "Sure you did," I said. "You bet you did. Mind if I come in?" He shrugged. Ignoring me, he put down the toaster on a stick, flipped some switches and stood up. A whining sound dwindled and disap- peared; some flickering lights went out. Others remained on, but he seemed to feel that, whatever it was he was doing, it didn't require his at- tention now. In his own good time, he came over and we shook hands. I said appreciatively, "Nice-looking laboratory you have here, Greek. I don't know what the stuff is for, but it looks expen—it looks very efficient." He grunted. "It is. Both. Expensive and efficient." I laughed. "Say," I said, "you were pretty loaded last night. Know what you told me you were doing here?" He looked up quickly. "What?" "You said you were in transmutation." I laughed harder than ever. H e stared at me thoughtfully, and for a second I thought—well, I don't know what I thought, but I was worried. He had a lot of funny-looking things there, and his hand was stretching out toward one of them. But then he said, "Old Virgie." "That's me," I said eagerly. "I owe you an apology," he went on. "You do?" He nodded. "I'd forgotten," he confessed, ashamed. "I didn't remember until just this minute that you were the one I talked to in my senior year. My only confidant. And you've kept my secret all this time." I coughed. "It was nothing," I said largely. "Don't give it a thought." 6 He nodded in appreciation. "That's just like you," he reminisced. "Ten years, eh? And you haven't breathed a word, have you?" "Not a word," I assured him. And it was no more than the truth. I hadn't said a word to anybody. I hadn't even said a word to myself. The fact of the matter was, I had completely forgotten what he was talking about. Kept his secret? I didn't even remember his secret. And it was driv- ing me nuts! "I was sure of you," he said, suddenly thawing. "I knew I could trust you. I must have—otherwise I certainly wouldn't have told you, would I?" I smiled modestly. But inside I was fiercely cudgeling my brain. He said suddenly, "All right, Virgie. You're entitled to something for having kept faith. I tell you what I'll do—I'll let you in on what I'm doing here." All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense up. He would do what? "Let me in" on something? It was an unpleasantly familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often. "To begin with," said the Greek, focusing attentively on me, "you won- der, perhaps, what I was doing when you came in." "I do," I said. He hesitated. "Certain—particles, which are of importance to my re- search, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this." He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. "And as for what they do—well, watch." E l Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion. "What are you doing, Greek?" I asked pretty bluntly. He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head. "No," he said. "For a minute I—but I can trust you, can't I? The man who kept my secret for ten long years." "Of course," I said. "All right." He poured water out of a beaker into a U-shaped tube, open at both ends. "Watch," he said. "Remember any of your college physics?" "The way things go, I haven't had much time to keep up with—" 7 "All the better, all the better," he said. "Then you won't be able to steal anything." I caught my breath. "Now listen—" "No offense, Virgie," he said earnestly. "But this is a billion dollars and—No matter. When it comes right down to cases, you could know as much as all those fool professors of ours put together and it still wouldn't help you steal a thing." He bobbed his head, smiled absently and went back to his gleamy gadgets. I tell you, I steamed. That settled it, as far as I was concerned. There was simply no excuse for such unjustified insults to my character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way… . He was asking for it. Actually and literally asking for it. He rapped sharply on the U-tube with a glass stirring rod, seeking my attention. "I'm watching," I told him, very amiable now that he'd made up my mind for me. "Good. Now," he said, "you know what I do here in the plant?" "Why—you make fertilizer. It says so on the sign." "Ha! No," he said. "That is a blind. What I do is, I separate optical isomers." "That's very nice," I said warmly. "I'm glad to hear it, Greek." "Shut up," he retorted unexpectedly. "You don't have the foggiest no- tion of what an optical isomer is and you know it. But try and think. This isn't physics; it's organic chemistry. There are compounds that exist in two forms—apparently identical in all respects, except that one is the mirror image of the other. Like right-hand and left-hand gloves; one is the other, turned backwards. You understand so far?" "Of course," I said. H e looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "No matter. They're called d- and l-isomers—d for dextro, l for levo; right and left, you see. And although they're identical except for being mirror-reversed, it so happens that sometimes one isomer is worth much more than the other." "I see that," I said. "I thought you would. Well, they can be separated—but it's expensive. Not my way, though. My way is quick and simple. I use demons." "Oh, now, Greek. Really." 8 He said in a weary tone, "Don't talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won't tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most trifling applica- tion of my discovery. I could use it for separating U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already—" He stopped in mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. "Never mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?" "No." "Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!" he applauded. "I knew I'd get the truth out of you if I waited long enough." Another ambiguous remark, I thought to myself. "But you surely know the second law of thermodynamics." "Surely." "I thought you'd say that," he said gravely. "So then you know that if you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all the water lowered in temperature. Right? And it's a one-way process. That is, you can't start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?" "Naturally," I said, "for heaven's sake. I mean that's silly." "Very silly," he agreed. "You know it yourself, eh? So watch." He didn't say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his gadgets. There was a faint whine and a gurgling, spluttering sound, like fat sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenstein movie. The water began to steam faintly. But only at one end! That end was steam; the other was—was— It was ice. A thin skin formed rapidly, grew thicker; the other open end of the U-tube began to bubble violently. Ice at one end, steam at the other. Silly? But I was seeing it! I must say, however, that at the time I didn't really know that that was all I saw. T he reason for this is that Pudge Detweiler came groaning down the steps to the laboratory just then. "Ah, Greek," he wheezed. "Ah, Virgie. I wanted to talk to you before I left." He came into the room and, panting, eased himself into a chair, a tired hippopotamus with a hangover. "What did you want to talk to me about?" Greco demanded. 9 [...]... out of his pocket and handed it to me It was metallic—about the size of a penny slot-machine bar of chocolate, if you remember back that far It gleamed and it glittered And it was ruddy yellow in color "What's that?" I asked "Gold," he said "Keep it, Virgie It came out of sea water, like you said Call it the down payment on your salary." I hefted it I bit it I said, "By the way, speaking of salary…... thought of ending my days as a drooling, mewling infant—or worse! To avert that, I was willing to work my brain to a shred 16 F irst it was a matter of learning—learning about the "strange particles." Ever hear of them? That's not my term—that's what the physicists call them Positrons The neutrino Pions and muons, plus and minus; the lambda and the antilambda K particles, positive and negative, and anti-protons... world and without visible kin She came in and stared and set up a cackling that would wake the dead "Mister Hampstead!" she chortled "My, but ain't you a sight!" "Where's Greco?" I demanded, and pushed her out of my way In pajamas and bathrobe, I stalked down the stairs and into the room that had once been a kitchen and now was Greco's laboratory "Look!" I yelled "What about this?" He turned to look at... nightclubs and hook up with some millionaire and wear beautiful clothes Housework is something for gadgets to take care of, with maids to run the gadgets Afraid to get a few calluses on their dainty hands! Winston K Marks Breeder Reaction The remarkable thing about Atummyc Afterbath Dusting Powder was that it gave you that lovely, radiant, atomic look—just the way the advertisements said it would In fact,... Greco's demons changed all that; it took flame and shot whistling into the air, spouting flame and spark like a Roman candle Maybe he thought it would scare them Maybe it did But it also made them mad And they ran, all at once, every one of them but my personal friend, for the biggest, openest of the windows— And leaped back, cursing and yelling, beating out flames on their clothes Jets of flame leaped... typical smell of a hotel on fire, but in that I was wrong "Demons! " yelled Greco, and a bellhop, hurrying by, paused to look at us queerly Greco sped for the stairs and up them I followed It was Greco's room that was ablaze—he made that clear, trying to get into it But he couldn't Black smoke billowed out of it, and orange flame The night manager's water bucket was going to make no headway against that... reading up on Maxwell." "Obviously." It was the simple truth I had got a lot of use out of the prison library—even to the point of learning all there was to learn about Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest of physicists, and his little demons I had rehearsed it thoroughly for El Greco "Suppose," I said, "that you had a little compartment inside a pipe of flowing gas or liquid That's what Maxwell said... guns began to go off without waiting for anyone to pull the trigger; and the barrels softened and slumped and spattered to the ground But the men still had bare hands, and they stayed The Greek got wild—or lost control, it was hard to tell which There was a sudden catastrophic whooshing roar and, wham, a tree took flame for roots A giant old oak, fifty feet tall, I guess it had been there a couple of centuries,... interested I had plenty of time for reading in prison You won't find me as ignorant as I was the last time we talked." He laughed sourly "That's a hot one Four years of college leave you as ignorant as the day you went in, but a couple years of jail make you an educated man." "Also a reformed one." He said mildly, "Not too reformed, I hope." 10 "Crime doesn't pay—except when it's within the law That's the... romances, the catchwords of advertising became realities; and the compound kept the men enslaved George knew what he had to do Howard L Myers The Reluctant Weapon A live weapon is a downright liability it's all too apt to get qualms of conscience! Horace Leonard Gold No Charge for Alterations Wanta know what's wrong with women these days? Spoiled! The whole kit and kaboodle of 'em They want to sing in . I wasn't that fortunate—and you can say that again because it's the story of my life: I wasn't that fortunate. I didn't go to Harvard,. character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way… . He was asking for it. Actually